Disturbing Trend Among Catholic College Students

Young Catholics who attend Catholic colleges are turning their backs on the faith. That's according to surveys from 38 Roman Catholic campuses conducted by the Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA.

The surveys, published in Catholic World Report, found that after four years in a Catholic college, students are more likely to accept abortion, premarital sex, and homosexual marriage &#0151 and less likely to pray, attend church, or consider themselves Catholic.

Lou Giovino of the Catholic League calls the surveys “dubious.” He says the study “really belongs in the garbage can because it's not a study &#0151 it's [surveys from] 30-odd colleges taken from this UCLA institute. They didn't even study the same students; they went from some students who were freshmen to some students who were seniors &#0151 it wasn't linear,” he says.

Giovino says the surveys also are “incomplete” and fail to adequately “point out the problems that there actually are in Catholic schools.”

“A lot of Catholic colleges have taken the stand, under the guise of academic freedom, and they have espoused a lot of views, some of which are contrary to the church's teaching,” he says. “But there's so many of them, it's hard to make a blanket statement.”

Giovino says if Catholic World Report wants to adequately discuss the topic of growing liberalism among Catholic young people, the magazine should wait for a more “complete” study.